Rent a HITMAN? How a Parody Website Catches REAL Criminals

Things I Learned Last Night

Ever heard of Rent a Hitman or rentahitman.com? At first glance, it sounds like a shady, illegal website straight out of a crime drama. But what if I told you it's actually a bizarre mix of satire, internet history, and law enforcement brilliance?

Rentahitman.com began in 2005 as a legitimate IT services site founded by a man named Bob Ines. The clever name was a play on words: “hit” referred to website hits, not assassinations. Bob's goal was to use his IT skills to provide online security audits. However, the site didn’t take off as planned, and it was left dormant for years.

But Bob made one crucial mistake—or stroke of genius: he forgot to take the site down.

Years later, he checked the website's email account and found over 700 inquiries—not for IT services, but for actual hitmen. People were requesting assassinations through a website they genuinely believed was a real hitman service.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning, and laughing a whole lot while you do, then you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode today!

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